UKC

I’m looking to buy a finger board/hang board. What do you recommend and why?

Always wood, not plastic. 

Good range of hold sizes. You'll probably spend most your time on the 20mm edge but it's useful to have some jugs and bigger holds for warming up or isolating fingers and some sub 20mm edges for anything project specific.

I know I've not actually recommended anything but as long as it fits those specifications I don't think it really matters. 

If you have some wood offcuts then the DIY option can work well, you can plane it smaller as you get stronger, change to different sizes, have different profiles on the top and bottom of a block and swap round depending on what your goals are

https://crusherholds.co.uk/product/matrix-climbing-fingerboard/

When I was looking some years ago, nobody I knew liked the BM2000 and the 1000 didn't appear to have the variety. Whether that was good or bad advice, I like the Matrix. It's also listed on the Grips and Grades app if interested.

The BM1000 has warmup jugs, a deep slot and a 20mm-ish edge. Those are all in the wide position and I don’t find myself using much else. The closer-together pockets for example hurt my shoulders. 

I love my BM1000 and would definitely buy the same again.  The jugs are great for warming up, stretching out my back, weighted pull ups etc.

The deep 44mm slots are great for easy stuff and warming up, plus you can buy blockers from Lattice (or make your own).

The 20mm edge is great for max hangs, with added weight or density hangs, with weight removed.

I also use the 12mm edges for hangs and pull ups, when I can’t be bothered to add weight.

Using blockers is more flexible than planing (a one way only process). Any flat material such as cardboard or thin plywood (aero can be as thin as 1.5mm) can serve to reduce the effective depth. For this, simple linear rungs are more convenient than different sized holes, as you can just have a set of full length pieces of various thicknesses (or not), that you can also stack to obtain holds as shallow as needed.

 (this being said, I must admit I have installed two sizes anyway

The Lattice rung is quite good and they've got a bargain at the minute: https://latticetraining.com/product/triple-campus-rung-deal/

I have the BM1000 and quite like it but you can definitely 'nestle' in the edges of the pockets to give yourself an advantage. I don't really see the benefit of having loads of pockets on a hangboard; if you want to train 2 finger pockets, you can do that on any edge. You don't need a 2-finger pocket-sized hole, you can just use 2 fingers on a campus rung.....

If you want to be cheap, get a 15mm/20mm campus rung and that'll do you for most things (if you have another thing to do pullups on, anyway). 

Once you get proper strong you might want something with slopers on but for pure finger strength any old edge will do. 

When you say “bargain”…!

This is about right. We all have different skin, finger sizes etc, so different people prefer different boards. Whatever you choose, wood is the way to go in most peoples opinion.

I've found a variety of edge widths to be pointless. If you want to hang off of two fingers, you don't need a two finger width pocket to do that. That said, I do think the Beastmaker 1000 is an excellent starter board and will take you up to f7c before extra protocols are added. Slopers and rails (20mm +/-) cover most types of hang and include monos, if that's your thing.